


I'm Just an Animal (Looking for a Home)

by FeralPen



Series: a thought, dear, however scary [2]
Category: Daredevil (TV), Jessica Jones (TV), The Defenders (Marvel TV)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Angst, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Human Disaster Matt Murdock, Hurt/Comfort, Panic Attacks, Past Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-11
Updated: 2018-08-24
Packaged: 2019-06-26 00:33:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 10,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15652128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FeralPen/pseuds/FeralPen
Summary: Jessica can't say "I love you." Five times she wanted to say it, and one time she realized she didn't have to.





	1. I

**Author's Note:**

> Work title is from "This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)" by Talking Heads. I've been listening to it on repeat as I write this. The lyric in particular struck me :
> 
> _I'm just an animal looking for a home and_  
>  _Share the same space for a minute or two_  
>     
> In any case, welcome to the sequel to Spray Paint Love in which I establish that while our heroes may have finally started communicating, they are still very much Fucked Up. They love each other, though, and they're trying. That's all any of us can do, is try. 
> 
> Chapter warning: mentions of night terrors, unhealthy coping mechanisms, therapy, and intense therapy session fallout, which happens sometimes and sucks. Enjoy!

It was Foggy’s idea for Matt to start going back to a therapist.

Jessica wasn’t exactly with-it, herself, but she could see Foggy’s point. Matt was better than when she’d first met him, but that didn’t mean he was by any means _healthy_. Healthy didn’t include night terrors that left him shaking with silent screams, inconsolably weeping terrifying, silent tears. Healthy didn’t include his hyper-vigilance, the things he couldn’t bring himself to talk about, his dangerous lack of self-worth. Reluctantly, she found herself agreeing with Foggy. Matt needed something to change.

It took months to convince him, and more time to find someone to see who they could trust. It was hard to open up to a therapist when you were hiding a huge chunk of your life from them to protect your secret identity. Father Lantom was a good priest, but he wasn’t actually a psychologist. It was Foggy who found the doctor for him to see, but it was Jessica who convinced him.

After the years of therapy she’d had for grief counseling, anger management, and general “someone please fix this woman before she breaks something,” Jessica didn’t think that she’d ever expect to shuffle that mess off onto someone else. Matt was different, though. She’d learned that Matt had gotten as much therapy as possible after his accident, special training for how to navigate life as a newly-blinded person, and that the nuns at the orphanage had done their best to get him as much grief counseling as they could after his dad’s death. He’d stopped, though, and always refused the free counseling he’d been offered at Columbia. He’d patched it together as much as he could, but the Daredevil thing had made him feel like he couldn’t get help without exposing himself and his loved ones. He’d struggled on.

And struggle he had. They didn’t talk about their traumas as a rule, but he was troubled. The fights he picked as Daredevil - even with Danny or Luke as backup - were getting more and more violent. He was coming back to her in all shades of black and blue and yellow. She hated to see it. It was her who eventually prodded him over the edge into going.

“Do you really think I need it?” Matt had asked out of nowhere one day.

Jessica had hummed. They were curled up on the couch of his apartment. She’d brought her laptop, and they were streaming movies with audio description from Trish’s Netflix account that she bummed off of. She snuggled a little closer to him.

“It’s your choice,” she said. “But it would make Foggy happy.”

“And if I don’t want to?”

“Then don’t.” She shrugged, her shoulder knocking into his bruised chest by accident and making him let out a little ‘oof.’ “Sorry. It’s up to you, though.”

He was making his pouty frown face again. “But what do you think?”

“You want my approval, or do you want me to tell you what to do?” He shrugged against her and she sighed. “Look, I’ve done a lot of therapy, myself. I don’t like it. That’s me, though. You have to look out for yourself. Personally, I think it couldn’t hurt to try it out. At least you could tell your friend you tried. And maybe it will help. You’re not an angry little boy anymore. Maybe it’ll do something for you this time.”

He’d hummed against her hair. “I just don’t want… I‘m not _broken_.”

“Nobody said you were. You’re just… having a rough time. There’s nothing wrong with getting help if you’re having a rough time.” She frowned and hugged herself tighter. “Or some other… hippie self-love bullshit like that.”

He made another uncertain sound, but he sighed as if he’d made a decision. “Maybe you’re right. I’ll tell Foggy to make the appointment.”

“Okay,” she’d said. She switched the show they were watching to a nature documentary, and that was that.

He started going once a week. They didn’t talk about his therapy. She didn’t ask. She figured if he wanted to talk about it, he would. He seemed to understand.

Then he called her one day. She was at her office, researching a client when her phone rang. She squinted at the caller ID for a second before she picked it up.

“Hey, Matt.”

She could hear him sniffling over the phone. “Jess.”

“What’s wrong? Are you sick?”

Silence over the line for a second, and then another, wetter sniff. “No, I - I’m fine.”

“You don’t sound fine.” She cut a glance to her laptop screen. 3:30. Close enough to quitting time. “I’m coming over.”

“You don’t - you don’t have to.”

“I don’t, but I want to. I’ll be there soon. You need anything?”

He was definitely crying. He was trying to hide it. “No, I… I’ll see you soon.”

She grabbed her keys and locked up. She got halfway to the apartment before she stopped, backtracking to a grocery. She grabbed a few things and jogged back in the direction of Matt’s place.

The front door was unlocked. She let herself in and found Matt curled up miserably on the couch. He definitely looked like he’d been crying, and that he was trying to hide the fact.

“Jessica,” he said. He cocked his head at her. “What’s that?”

She awkwardly shuffled the bags around. She felt stupid now. “Um… it’s ice cream. That brand you had in your freezer a few weeks ago. And blueberries? The organic kind you buy. You seemed to like them, last time. And, um…” She definitely felt stupid now. Matt’s face was incredulous. “This, um… fuck it.” She thrust the last thing at him.

He took the plushy microfiber blanket from her and held it in his hands. His face was unreadable. Jessica took the food into the kitchen and started rooting around for bowls and spoons to avoid looking at him. She cut a glance back over to him and saw him squeeze the blanket in his hands and run it over his fingers. She ducked her head back down. She was rinsing the berries when he set the blanket down and walked around the island to her.

“Matt?” she asked. She set the berries down in the sink and angled her body towards him.

He leaned over and wrapped his arms around her. His lip was trembling. Her heart stuttered. Was he upset with her? The urge to run, as always, came up, but she squashed it down. Not yet.

“Thank you,” he said. He was crying again. Oops. What had she done now?

“What?”

“You - You brought me these things and - and you -” he squeezed her harder. He didn’t seem to mind that her wet hands were leaving splotches on his shirt. “You’re amazing, Jessica.”

She chewed on her words for a moment. Her first response was always the worst, always aimed to harm enough for her to run. She bit the impulse down and shook her head.

“The ice cream’s melting,” she said instead.

He laughed against her shoulder. It was a watery laugh, but it was a happy one. She took the win.

“How about I dish it out, and you go unwrap that blanket,” he asked. She nodded, knowing better than to argue. He was fussy about everything in the kitchen, from cleaning the dishes to preparing food. She didn’t mind. It gave him peace, and he seemed to even enjoy it most days.

She’d gotten all the tags and packaging off the throw blanket and tossed them by the time Matt brought over two bowls of ice cream with blueberries on top. He immediately snuggled close to her once he sat down, so she threw the blanket over both of them and took her portion from him. There was a comfortable silence as they took their first bites.

“Rough session?” she finally asked.

Matt just nodded. “Yeah… It was… intense.”

“Do you need to talk about it?” She was trying. She still hoped he said no.

He shook his head and smiled at her. “No, I’m good. Much better now that you’re here.”

She caught herself smiling like an idiot, so she forced herself back into her resting bitch face. “You’re incredibly corny.”

He just smiled at her, and her heart felt warm. Being around this idiot felt so good sometimes. She buried that feeling with another bite of ice cream.


	2. II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter content warning: dramatization of a dissociative episode and a panic attack

Something was wrong.

It shouldn’t be wrong. Nothing bad was happening. Nothing was different. She was at Matt’s apartment, naked on his cool silk sheets. Matt was touching her with that single-minded focus he had that normally had her squirming. Something, though, was wrong.

It hadn’t even been a bad day. It had been a normal day. She felt fuzzy. Like she was watching things happen to someone else. The billboard’s glare from the living room was purple in the corner of her eye. Matt was still touching her, she was still squirming, but it was like there was a wall between her and her body. She floated.

Something changed. Matt wasn’t touching her anymore. Jessica watched herself blink from somewhere far away. He was speaking to her now. She made herself listen.

“Jessica? Please? You’re scaring me.”

And he did. He did sound scared. Jessica blinked again. What - what was wrong? Where…? What… It all came back in a rush.

Jessica rolled away from him with a gasp. Even with her eyes closed, the purple light from the billboard was still shining in her eyes. She kept gasping, ragged, until the gasps turned into sobs.

Matt was gently touching her back. “Jessica, please, talk to me. Jessica?”

She blindly groped and grabbed his hand. She tried not to squeeze too hard, but she was sobbing so hard that she was rocking the mattress. She couldn’t catch her breath.

She slowly registered Matt’s quiet, husky voice. He was talking again. “Jess, Jess, breathe. Shh. In and out. Steady. Breathe. Please, Jess, breathe for me.”

His weight on the bed shifted as he scooped her into his arms, her back to his front. His hand was still clasped in her vice grip. His other hand was rubbing gentle circles on her upper arm.

“Just breathe, baby. I need you to breathe nice and slow for me.”

She could feel his chest rising and falling underneath her shoulder blades. His pulse was pounding on her skin, but his breath was measured. Slowly, slowly her breathing came to match his. Her chest hitched every few breaths with a lingering sobby gasp. Matt gently moved away from her.

He talked quietly as he did. “I’m just grabbing your clothes. You want to put your clothes back on? You can nod or shake your head.”

She shakily nodded. He grabbed her underwear and t shirt off the ground and helped her into them. She watched as he slipped his own underwear and undershirt back on and slid back into bed.

“Come here,” he said. She let him gently pull her down so that he was propped up on the pillows, and her head rested over his heart. It was slower, now. She listened to its steady beat as he brushed the hair out of her face. “Are you okay, Jess?”

She bit her lip and shook her head.

She could feel his throat vibrate as he hummed. “That’s okay. Thank you. It’s okay.”

He kept stroking her hair, and then her shoulder, gently. Her hiccuping sobs finally slowed, then stopped altogether. Matt still wasn’t saying anything. He just kept petting her gently. She listened to the steady beat of his heart, comforted herself with the rise and fall of his breaths.

“I’m sorry,” she said finally.

His strokes faltered for just a moment before they resumed. His heartbeat picked up slightly. 

“You don’t have to apologize,” he said. “You really, really don’t, Jessica. There’s nothing to be sorry for.”

“I ruined it,” she blurted out. “I just - freaked out, and I ruined it, and I’m sorry.”

“Jessica,” he said firmly. His heart was faster now. “Stop. It’s okay. You didn’t ruin anything.”

“But -”

“No,” he cut her off. He never did that. Her mouth clacked shut. “Just stop - please. You didn’t ruin anything. We’re fine. You didn’t do anything wrong, you’re not obligated to - to do anything, or... and you don’t need to apologize. Just - Jess, I need to know if I did something. Did I hurt you? Did I - what did I do?”

She dragged herself up off of his warm, safe chest to look at his face. The skin around his eyes and mouth was pinched with worry. She impulsively leaned in to kiss the frown lines on his forehead. They smoothed under her touch.

“You didn’t do anything,” she said. The words scraped out like crushed glass on her throat. “I just - It sneaks up, sometimes. I don’t know why. I just… I freak out.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. He hesitantly leaned in to kiss her cheek. 

She closed her eyes and enjoyed his lips lingering on her cheek, the slight rasp of his stubble on her skin as he pulled back. She opened her eyes and looked at his face. Her heart did a funny little flip, looking at him like this. His mouth quirked into a tentative smile.

“I’ll be right back,” he said. 

She watched him slip out of bed and wander out of the room. She took the minute to breathe. She felt so tired now. All the crying had left her eyes raw and her nose dripping. She rubbed the tip of her nose with the back of her hand.

He wasn’t gone long - he came back with an armful of things. She let out a startled laugh as he nearly tripped over a carelessly-discarded shoe carrying his load back.

“What’s all this?”

He smiled at her and held up his bounty. “Bottled water for you. Tissues. Fluffy blanket.” He tossed the things over at her and held up the last item. “Laptop. Let’s watch a Disney movie.”

She shook her head bemusedly, but she helped him get to Netflix and put a Disney movie on. He wrapped the blankets around both of them and pulled her close again so that she was spooned against him. Her muscles relaxed slowly, bit by bit with his arms wrapped around her. She breathed in the musky masculine smell that was all him and felt his breath ghosting over her ear. She fell asleep like that, listening to his breathing and cartoon animals singing.

She hadn’t felt this safe in years.


	3. III

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was weird. It started off pretty simple: I wanted to write a humorous scene of Matt and Frank getting into a fight. Then... I don't know what happened. It got out of hand.
> 
> I love Frank Castle, I love the Netflix version of him, I love how nuanced his portrayal is. I just want you to know that, because when I write him around Matt, they basically turn into squabbling children, and Frank is like this overly-enthusiastic murder puppy. I can't ever seem to write those two around each other seriously - it always turns to comedy.

“Jess, there’s been a change of plans.”

Jessica frowned and picked up the pace. Matt didn’t cancel their occasional date night without good reason. It was probably a vigilante problem.

“What is it?” she asked into the phone. “Do I need to call Luke or Danny?”

Matt’s breath crackled in the phone speaker. “No, Danny’s at that conference, remember? And I think we can handle it without Luke.”

“We? You and me?”

“Um, no…” He drew it out before he sighed. “Frank’s here.”

“Frank’s there.” She counted to ten in her head. “Matt Murdock, I swear to God if you broke another coffee table, I’m going to kill you.”

“Of course I didn’t,” he said too quickly. “But if you’re already on the way, do you want to help us capture some human traffickers?”

“You really know the way to a girl’s heart,” she said dryly. “I’ll be there in five. Don’t trash the apartment. You hear me? Do not.”

He hung up on her without answering. She rolled her eyes and stuffed her phone back into her pocket.

She was completely unsurprised to hear thumping and grunts of exertion coming through the front door when she got there. She entertained the idea for a moment that maybe he and Frank were having a passionate affair. Without even inviting her. How rude. The sound of a lamp falling over with a damning crash pulled her out of _that_ intriguing fantasy. With a long-suffering sigh, she threw the door open and stalked through the entryway.

Honestly, she’d seen worse.

Frank had Matt in a headlock. Matt was frozen with his fist halfway into a kidney punch that would probably have bruised Frank for days. They were both kitted out in their vigilante gear already, but their matching deer in headlights expressions made them look more like two schoolboys caught with their hands in the cookie jar. The coffee table was flipped over, but looked intact. The lamp was a goner. Other than that, Frank had a black eye forming, and Matt had a bloody nose. It really could have been worse.

“What the hell is wrong with you two?” Jessica put her hands on her hips. “I mean, seriously, what the fuck? Can you two just whip them out already and get the dick measuring over with?”

Frank let go of Matt and shoved him away. “I’m sorry, ma’am.”

“You’re gonna ma’am me, Frank? You know that doesn’t work on me.”

“We were just having a disagreement, Jess,” Matt said. She wordlessly handed him the box of tissues off the counter for his bloody nose. A moment later, a bag of frozen peas was flying into Frank’s hands. Matt mumbled around the tissue in his face, “Frank wants to string the traffickers upside down from their ankles and let them asphyxiate slowly.”

“Frank,” Jessica admonished. “We’ve talked about this.”

Frank was pressing the peas to his face. “But ma’am, they’re the worst scum of the earth. I don’t know why you guys are so determined to let shitheads like that continue breathing.”

“All can find repentance in this life,” Matt said.

Frank shot him a disgusted look and opened his mouth.

“We’re better than that, Frank,” Jessica interrupted. “We don’t kill people.”

“But what if I just shot them? Clean kill, minimal pain. Would that make you feel better bout it?”

Jessica rubbed her temples and shot Matt a glance. He shrugged at her. A smug smirk played on his lips. Why did she even bother reasoning with them?

“Okay,” she said. “Let’s compromise. We’ll help you detain the human traffickers, and we’ll help you beat the shit out of them, but at the end of the night, they go to the cops. Deal?”

Frank grumbled something under his breath, but took her offered hand. “Deal.”

“Look at that, we’re settling things like adults.” Jessica waved a hand at them in dismissal and grabbed a beer out of the fridge. “It’s so much nicer than incredible violence, isn’t it?”

Frank and Matt gave her matching unimpressed looks.

“Let’s get this over with,” Frank said. He reached for his duffle. Matt kicked it out of the way. Frank gritted his teeth and left it. “You know I still have more than one piece on me, right?”

“So why would you need another?” Matt said with a smirk.

“Boys, focus. Human traffickers bad. Vigilantes good...ish. Sort of good. Whatever. Let’s go kick some ass.”

She texted Karen to let them know where they were going as they exited through the fire escape. She chugged the beer as Frank led them to - surprise! - a shady warehousing block.

“The number of people we beat up here,” she said as she tossed the can to the side. “You’d think they would get the hint and stop using these warehouses to commit crimes in.”

“The number of do-gooders in tights,” Frank said. “You’d think they’d stop commiting crimes in New York, period. Scumbags are scumbags, though. Too stupid to change.”

Jessica grabbed Matt’s arm in warning before he got preachy again. They crept along the street.

“Twelve guys,” Matt murmured to them. “They’ve got guns. There’s… I think it’s five - no, six - girls in there. They’re tied up. Eight guys in the room with the girls. Three watching the perimeter. The last one…” He made a prissy face. “Bathroom break. He’s got some really bad constipation. I don’t know if he’ll even be _able_ to join the fight.”

“As annoying as you are,” Frank said. “You’re damn useful to have around.”

Matt made another face. “First guy around the corner. Has an SMG.” Frank grunted in affirmation. “I think it’s one of Turk’s, though,” he added. “It’ll probably jam up before it becomes a problem.”

“See?” Frank said to Jessica. “Damn useful.”

She couldn’t help the swell of pride despite herself. That was her Matt.

“What’s the play?” Matt asked. “Take out the guards quietly, then go in together?”

Frank shook his head. “Too risky. They might spook and hurt the girls.”

“Bust in and break heads, be ready for the perimeter guys?” Jessica asked.

Frank shrugged at her. “Good enough.”

Matt darted past them near-silently. They watched him throw his grappling baton out to latch onto a support beam. He used the momentum and the grappling line to swing himself around the corner and plant his foot directly into the face of the man with the SMG. The man went to his knees with blood pouring down his face. Matt immediately had an arm around his throat and had strangled him into unconsciousness by the time Jessica and Frank caught up with him.

“One down, eleven to go,” Jessica whispered. Matt’s answering grin was devilish.

They made it to the door without being seen by the other two perimeter guys. They steeled themselves for a second.

“Ready to make some noise?” Frank asked.

Jessica nodded. Matt’s answer was to kick the door in.

The men inside were not ready for an attack. It took them precious seconds to scramble to their weapons. Seconds they really didn’t have.

Matt and Frank exploded into the room like a deadly whirlwind. Jessica was caught up in watching them for a whole second. They really held back when they fought each other. Fighting side by side, they were a force to be reckoned with. Men were flying left and right, and so far no one had had a clear shot to take. Jessica wasn’t lulled into a false sense of security, though. She ran to the girls who were cowering on some mattresses in the corner.

“Get up,” she said. “You need to get out of here.” She snapped their zip tie handcuffs in between her hands, careful of the girls’ abraded wrists. 

The girls were terrified, but the sight of their captors being handily beaten by a red and a black blur seemed to give them some courage. One of them promoted herself to leader and gathered the other girls with her. Jessica led them to the doorway they’d busted in, only to run into the remaining perimeter guards.

They had SMGs. There was no time to think. One of them raised the gun to do a classic spray and pray approach. He’d gotten two rounds out before his gun jammed, and Jessica tackled him to the ground. She lifted the first man and threw him into the second. Before they had time to react, she grabbed their guns and crushed them with her bare hands.

“Don’t move, or I do the same to your balls,” she growled.

The men froze. Jessica took the opportunity to punch them both in the head and knock them out.

“Go,” she told the girls. “Run to a more populated area. Get a phone. Call the cops. You’re going to need to go to the precinct and make a statement. Go!”

The girls ran off.

“Roll call,” Jessica said. “Anybody get shot?”

“You did.” Matt carefully minced his way through the sea of groaning bodies to her. Frank had whipped a burner phone out of his jacket - he dialed something while he idly kicked a man who was stirring on the ground. “Jess, your arm.”

Was she shot? The adrenaline hadn’t worn off yet. She looked down. “Fuck, they tore my jacket.”

Matt’s mouth was a worried frown, but it momentarily cracked into a smile. “Your jacket? Really?”

“It’s an expensive jacket.”

Matt prodded her arm. “It’s was just a graze. I don’t think you’ll bleed too much before we get back.”

Frank got off the phone and joined them. He looked like he’d just sucked a lemon. “I called the cops. Anonymous tip. We should get going. You okay, ma’am?”

“I’ve had worse,” she said. “That everybody?”

“Except the guy still stuck on the toilet,” Matt said. “He’s not coming out.”

Frank spat and kicked the nearest unconscious guy. “Fuckin’ scumbags. Shoulda let me put them down.”

“Let’s just get Jess home before the cops get here,” Matt said. He gently led Jessica out of the building.

She didn’t live at Matt’s apartment. She’d been clear that she was keeping her own place, and Matt had seemed relieved. They liked their space. Still, it didn’t sound untrue when Matt had called it home. She mused on that as they made their way back through back alleys. Matt’s hand never left its spot between her shoulder blades.

Frank didn’t stay. He grabbed his duffle, verified that Jessica was going to be fine, and ran off into the night. To kill someone, she presumed. She had less hope than Matt did about getting Frank to stop being Frank. Frank would do as Frank pleased, especially if it riled Matt up.

Matt fussed over her as soon as Frank was gone.

“Matt, I’m fine,” she said. Really, once she’d taken her jacket off, the wound wasn’t particularly deep. Just a gash in her arm. “Take off that ridiculous suit before you do anything else.”

Matt took her literally and started stripping right there in the living room. She watched him peel himself out of the suit, leaving him in just boxer briefs. He kicked the suit away and immediately made for the medical kit in the closet.

“I’m sorry,” he said when he got back and started pulling out gauze.

“For what? Me getting shot? Hey,” She grabbed his arm to stop him. He stilled under her touch. His ear angled towards her. “It’s not your fault, Matt. I’m okay.”

“But you almost weren’t.”

“We were careful. One of them just got lucky. It happens.”

She let go of his arm so that he could tend to her wound. It had already stopped bleeding. She’d probably be okay in two days. It helped him to let him fuss, though.

He murmured something too quiet for her to hear as he finished taping the gauze on.

“What was that?”

“I said,” he said only a little louder than a whisper. “That I don’t like seeing you get hurt.”

She bit down her first sarcastic response. Now was not the time. “I told you, Matt. I’m okay.”

He repacked the kit and gathered the trash. He made to go past her to pick up his suit after he dumped the trash. She caught his hand. He let her pull him closer to the couch.

“I’m glad it was me and not you,” she said.

Matt’s face crumpled. “Don’t say that. Why would you say that?”

“Because.” She pulled him til he was sitting on the couch next to her. She traced a few of the silvery, gnarled lines on his torso. Some of the newer ones were still pink. “You have more than enough scars.” She leaned in and kissed one of the ones near his collar bones. “It’s okay to let me get a few. It’s really okay. We’re okay.”

She quickly moved to straddle his hips and capture his mouth in a tender kiss.

“I should go back out,” he whispered when they broke the kiss. “There’s nobody -”

“Frank’s out there,” she interrupted. She trailed leading kisses from his ear down his cheek to the corner of his mouth. “He can handle it tonight.”

“But -”

“Stay,” she said. “Please.”

He was still tense, still stressed. She pushed gently until he was reclined on the couch. She stepped off to shimmy her pants off, then the rest of her clothes in a tangled rush. Matt was trying to sit up.

“Jessica…” His mouth was still a pinched line. “You’re hurt. What are you doing?”

“Shh,” she said, pushing him back down. “It’s okay. I’m okay. Let me take care of you.”

She climbed back on top of him and started her exploration again, kissing from his sensitive ears down his throat to trail her lips over the network of scars that covered his torso. She took his grasping hands in her own and held them above his head. His hips twitched upwards at that. Jessica smirked.

She checked in. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Jess -”

She leaned in and kissed him properly. That was obviously the answer he was looking for. He moaned into her mouth. 

“Unless you’ve got any objections,” she breathed. “Lie there and let me take care of you. I want to. You want me to?”

Matt nodded, and that was all the permission she needed to continue her lazy exploration of his beautiful, scarred body. He twitched and writhed under her hands and mouth. He was usually more active than this, focusing himself on her pleasure until she drowned in it. She was having far too much fun turning the tables back on him. He certainly wasn’t complaining, either.

He laughed when she rolled off of him to dig a condom out of the pocket, of her discarded jacket, though.

“Condom in your wallet? Really?”

“It’s cliche,” she said defensively. “But I like to be prepared. What, you’ve never done it?”

“In college,” he said. “I stopped after I opened my wallet to pay for dinner, and the condom fell out in front of Foggy’s grandmother. It took two years to convince her Foggy and I weren’t secretly dating.”

“Oh. Was she disappointed?”

“Only when she found out we weren’t.” He obligingly lifted his hips to help her tug his underwear off. “She was all ready for us to adopt some great-grandbabies. Now she just asks whether I’ve met a nice girl to settle down with yet.”

She shook her head and climbed back on top of him. “No more talking about grandmas. Or babies. Or Foggy.”

“Yes ma’m,” he said with a smirk.

“In fact, just shut up,” she said. She made sure he didn’t have breath to say anything witty for a while. 

He made feeble grabbing hands at her afterwards when she got up off the couch. “But Jess, you didn’t -”

“It’s fine,” she cut him off. “That’s not what that was about, anyway.”

“No?” he asked. He sat up. He looked a little dazed. His voice was fuzzy around the edges. “What was that, then?”

Because I love you, she thought. And I’m too scared to tell you.

She definitely couldn’t say that.

“It’s nothing,” she said. She stalked past the couch to the liquor cabinet and unscrewed the top of the whiskey. She grimaced and took a long pull. The whiskey burned all the way down and settled in her stomach. Liquid courage for a coward. “Look, if you’re really determined to make it up to me, come on to bed.”

He cocked his head at her like a confused spaniel, but he followed her into the bedroom regardless. He seemed content to ignore whatever her heart or her breathing or whatever was saying to him in favor of falling into bed with her. Bullet dodged, then. 

Sex was easy. Feelings… not so much. She was shit at feelings. Better to just leave those unsaid.


	4. IV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which our heroes finally talk about Kilgrave - a subject they usually sucessfully avoid.
> 
> Content warning for all the squick Kilgrave's memory brings.
> 
> A note: the final chapter of this fic doesn't know what it wants to be, so I've been obsessively tweaking my cowboy story instead. I need to write the plus-one of this 5+1 fic, but it's just bleh right now. Also trying to write a Luke-centric tie-in to this take on the universe because I loved Luke Cage season 2 so much - as much as I also hated it for where Luke ended up going. Also, Mariah monologued waaaay too much. Like, seriously, Mariah. Chill.

“I can’t believe that really just happened,” Jessica said. “Though, from our perspective, we really should expect these things more often.”

Matt just laughed. He wasn’t in his Daredevil suit, for once. This time, one of Spider-Man’s villains had come up from Midtown and attacked right at sunset. Unfortunately for him, he’d attacked when Matt was on his way home from Foggy’s place - where they’d been comparing notes for one of Foggy’s upcoming cases that was similar to one of Matt’s from the year before - and Danny and Luke were in the neighborhood working one of their new Heroes For Hire cases. Matt had called Jessica, and the weirdly animal-themed villain had gotten his animally ass handed to him by three Defenders. Matt had to sit that one out without his suit. He was a little put out by that. Danny dragged everyone to a Chinese restaurant to celebrate their newest win afterwards.

“Weirdness does seem to follow us,” Matt said neutrally. He smiled as Jessica tugged him out of the way of an oblivious passerby and cussed the lady out under her breath. “You going to fight every idiot who runs into the poor helpless blind man every time we go out?”

“I might,” she said. “Seriously, how hard is it to watch where you’re going? I mean, you’ve got the glasses, the cane… It’s kind of obvious.”

“Maybe I need a dog,” he said.

“Another thing for them to step on? Besides, you don’t even like dogs.”

“Point.” They walked along in silence for a few paces. “Jess, can I ask you a question?”

Her heartbeat sped up. Oops. He didn’t mean to startle her. “What is it?”

“It’s more of an observation, actually. I just noticed…” He hesitated, unsure of where this was going. Maybe it was nothing, maybe he was worrying too much. “I just noticed that you never eat much, whenever we go for Chinese with Danny. You stir the food around on your plate, but you don’t eat. Do you… just not like it? Because Danny probably wouldn’t be offended if you told him. We could go somewhere else.”

Jessica was quiet. They kept walking. Her heart was a rapid beat in her chest. “No one’s ever asked me before,” she said finally.

“Asked what?”

“Why I stopped eating Chinese.”

“Oh.” He had a bad feeling about this. “Is there… a reason you stopped?”

Jessica’s heartbeat was so loud in his ears, he could swear it was his own. She scuffed her boot on the sidewalk and stuffed her hands in her jacket pocket. She let Matt keep his hold on her elbow, though. She hadn’t totally walled herself off. He clung to that little lifeline.

“It’s… It’s a Kilgrave thing,” she forced out.

Matt had suspected as much. He didn’t say anything. Jessica talked better to a quiet audience.

“The first night I met him,” she said. “When he’d just gotten me under his spell. I was… _thrashing_ inside my mind. I was so confused. So scared. I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t move. He didn’t care about that.” She swallowed hard and hunched her shoulders. “He took me to a Szechuan place. He told me… ‘You like Chinese.’”

Matt tightened his grip on her arm.

“It’s… It’s not like it wasn’t true. I _did_ like Chinese. Before that, at least. It was just… the way he rewrote the script. The way he casually just told me things, and I had to act like they were true. How he didn’t even _care_ about what he was doing to me. It was just another Tuesday for him.” She grit her teeth and was quiet for a moment. “I sometimes still wonder how much of who I am, what I like… how much of it is _him_ still inside me. Still telling me how to feel, what to think.”

“...I’m sorry, Jessica,” Matt said. What else could he say?

Jessica suddenly barked out an ugly, terrible laugh. “I shouldn’t - I shouldn’t laugh. It’s just… it’s funny that I think it’s so bad. Hating Chinese food. Fuck. Like that was the worst thing. People I tell about it, or who know already, they always assume the rape was the worst thing. Like that’s the worst thing that could happen. And it was awful - don’t get me wrong, it was _awful_ \- but the scariest thing… The scariest thing was…” She choked up then. Matt could taste the tears that she angrily scrubbed back.

“Losing yourself,” he said quietly. “He tried to erase you and replace you with who he wanted you to be... Am I right?”

Jessica nodded jerkily. She didn’t say anything else, just roughly scrubbed at her nose. He wished he had a tissue to offer her. They kept walking. He’d long since forgotten where they were walking to. Jessica seemed content to walk arm in arm with him while she got herself under control.

He caught a whiff of something and an idea came to him.

“Are you hungry?”

Jessica turned in his grip to stare at him. He couldn’t guess her expression.

“Um, a little?” she said. “Why?”

“There’s a burger shop on this street,” he said with a tentative smile. “Mom and pop place. The fry cook’s name is Lou, and he’s got OCD bad. The germaphobic type. They’ve probably got the cleanest kitchen in New York.”

She humored him. “How do you know all this?”

“I listen. I smell. I taste,” he added the last with a grimace. “I taste all kinds of things. Lou’s burgers are some of the only ones I’ll eat. So, you want one?”

“A tasty burger from a cook with pronounced mental illness?” She asked. Her wry humor was returning. “How could I say no?”

Matt grinned at her. She pulled her hands out of her pockets to take his hand in her own and squeezed. They started walking again, following Matt’s nose.

“You’re taking this better than most,” Jessica observed. Her voice was questioning.

Matt hummed thoughtfully. “I may be repressing. Does the thought of Kilgrave make me want to dig up his corpse, perform necromancy to reanimate it, and then slowly beat it to death? Yes. Do I wish I could travel back in time and shove bamboo under his nails and rub salt in the wounds? Also yes.”

“That’s… awfully specific.”

“He was a terrible person.” He hesitated, then went for it, “I may go to Hell for this, but I’m glad you killed him.”

Jessica was quiet for a long moment. Finally, she said, “I didn’t want to. I didn’t have a choice. I tried everything else.”

“He was dangerous,” he agreed. “I don’t think God could judge you for making the best you could of an impossible situation. Or anyone else for that matter. Can I hug you, Jessica?”

She nodded, so he wrapped an arm around her.

“I don’t like to see you hurt,” he said. “I hate that these things happened to you. I hate Kilgrave for doing these things to you. But the past is in the past, and I don’t think it would help you to let myself get worked up about him. Getting angry, getting vengeful… it just seems self-serving. I don’t want to just be this violent, chest-beating guy and make it all about how _I_ feel. I want to be there for _you_ , Jess. I want to be whatever you need. So whatever you need, I’m here for. And if that’s me telling you how I would slowly roast Kilgrave over a fire and feed him his own toes, I would happily do that. And if that’s shutting up and just being there for you, then I’ll do that, too. Whatever you need, Jess.”

Jessica leaned her head into his shoulder and breathed deeply. She opened her mouth to say something, but then seemed to think better of it. She shook her head. 

“Thank you, Matt,” she settled on.

He turned his head and kissed her hair for an answer. “We’re there now. Want to get a burger?”

He could hear the warmth in her voice when she answered, “Yeah, I’d like to get a burger.”

He couldn’t fix the past, couldn’t glue down her jagged broken edges, but he could do this one thing. He could make sure she always had a choice. He was a little afraid of how far he was willing to go to protect her ability to make choices. The things he would be willing to do for her.

He could say one thing, though: Kilgrave was lucky he was already dead.


	5. V

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Featuring Reluctant Team Mom Jessica as the only halfway sensible adult in proximity whenever Claire isn't around. She didn't ask to be Team Mom, but it was kind of thrust upon her. 
> 
> Also featuring extensive Foggy as a Good Bro. Also, as an avid fan of both Matt Fraction's Hawkeye run and the Occupy Avengers Hawkeye, I love how a lot of the MCU fandom just ignores the MCU canon Clint with the farm and kids and uses comics!Clint instead. That's basically my take on it. Farm man is quaint, but deaf orphan is my favorite.
> 
> The final chapter is still under construction. It's basically wish fulfillment, as I live in an area that's been over 100 degrees every day this summer. I'm writing about fall time and hot cocoa dammit.

“Um, Ms. Jones? Or, uh, Jessica? I hate to bother you, but… Uh, it’s Matt.”

Jessica shot upright in bed. The plastic of the phone creaked in her ear. She struggled to unclench her fist and relax. The alarm clock said it was around 2am.

“Where are you? What’s wrong? Is Matt okay?”

Foggy’s gusty breath crackled through the phone. “Um, no, yeah, he’s okay. Ish. He’s… someone hit him on the head. He’s a little loopy.”

“Where are you?” She jumped out of bed and tripped over her boots looking for her pants. “Ow, fuck. Did you call Claire? How bad is it?”

“He’s at my apartment. He’s okay, I think. I called Claire. She walked me through concussion first aid. He’s asking for you, though.”

“Text me your address,” she ordered. “I’ll be there ASAP.”

“Okay, will do. Oh yeah, and Jessica? You’re not allergic to cats, are you?”

“What? No.”

“Oh good. I’ll get you the address right away.”

He hung up on her. Jessica frowned at the phone, but threw it on the bed to drag her jeans on and fish under the bed for some relatively clean socks. Her phone chimed. She snatched it and her keys and jacket and half-ran out the door.

It took her way too long to get to Foggy’s. Her jacket was still slightly too warm for the weather. She felt a sweat building as she jogged through the streets. Damn Matt. He wasn’t supposed to go out without backup. And what was the good of the stupid helmet if it didn’t stop this from happening? She wasn’t sure if the churning in her stomach was worry or anger. Somebody was getting punched tonight.

She double-checked the address and pounded on the door.

“Coming! Geez, don’t bust my door down,” she heard from inside. Several locks scraped open. Foggy opened the door and gestured her inside. “He’s in here.”

She ignored the look he gave her - Foggy always looked at her like he was both terrified she was going to break something and resigned to the fact that she would inevitably break something - and pushed past him into the main room. It wasn’t a very ritzy apartment, but it was fairly clean and maintained for a bachelor pad. The couch looked comfortable, which was good, considering Matt was sprawled on it.

Foggy must have gotten him to change, though she wondered how and why he had comfortably-worn clothes in Matt’s size laying around. He’d tucked his sweatpants into his socks again like the adorable idiot that he was. His smile was sheepish underneath the ice pack that covered half of his face.

“Jessica,” he said weakly. “You came.”

She counted to ten in her head. “I’m going to slap you, Matt. What happened to getting backup?”

“I’m sorry,” he slurred. She could see now that there was a swollen lump on the side of his jaw. Talking must hurt. “Didn’t have time. They were gonna shoot a guy. Can’t let them shoot a guy, Jess. Shooting people is… bad.”

She held onto her anger for another minute before she sighed and let her shoulders drop. She knelt next to the couch and took his hand.

“You idiot,” she said quietly. “Did you win, at least? ‘Cause you look like you lost.”

Matt lifted the ice pack with his other hand - that had a finger splinted, dammit Matt - and made an affronted expression. “I don’t _lose_.”

She was distantly aware of Foggy awkwardly shuffling things in the kitchen. His eavesdropping was so unsubtle that it was comical. “I dunno, Matt, you look like shit.”

“You should see the other guy. He looks worse. I think. I’m not sure.” Matt’s face was puzzled. She gently took the ice pack from him and laid it back on the lump on his head.

“He’s lucky he was wearing his helmet,” Foggy said from the kitchen. He looked tense, but resigned. “How hard he got hit, he’d have cracked his skull in half like a melon.”

“Guy didn’t hit me,” Matt muttered. “Ground hit me.”

“Important distinction,” Foggy agreed. “Still rang your bell pretty good, though.”

Jessica’s phone started ringing. The noise made Matt wince under his ice pack. She quickly silenced it. “It’s Danny,” she said.

“Oh. Danny,” Matt said in the guiltiest voice she’d heard since he ate the rest of their leftovers from Karen’s without her last week. “I forgot about Danny.”

Jessica rolled her eyes and answered it. “Danny?”

“Jess? Hey, yeah, it’s Danny.”

“I have caller ID.”

“Oh yeah.” Danny laughed uncomfortably. “Sorry to bother you, but have you seen Matt? I think we were supposed to meet up by the 7-11, but it might have been the dumpster that smells like moldy pastries. I can’t ever remember which dumpster that is, though.”

“Wouldn’t it be by a bakery?” She came to her senses. “Fuck. Forget about the dumpster, Danny. He’s with me. We’re at Foggy’s.”

“Oh, is he okay?”

“More or less. He got into a fight by himself. I’m not sure what happened - he’s kind of out of it. Concussion. Something about hitting his head on the ground.”

“Ah, man, that’s rough. Guess he’s not coming back out tonight.”

She sighed internally. Time to do the right thing. “Are you going to be okay out there by yourself, Danny? Do you need me to come back out?”

“No, no,” Danny said quickly. “You stay with Matt. He needs you. I’ll find somebody else. I hear Hawkeye’s back in town. Or maybe Spider-Man’s in Manhattan again tonight. I’ll just jog around, see what’s going on.”

“Okay,” she said. “Just remember the rules.”

She could hear Danny’s smile through the phone. “Jessica Jones standing up for rules? Ha, no, I know. Call for backup if things look too hot. I got it.”

“Okay. Take care out there.”

“Take care of Matt.”

Jessica hung the phone up and looked back down at the downed vigilante on the couch. He was smiling a big dopey smile.

“Hey Jess, I got you a present,” he said apropos of nothing.

That sounded troubling. Jessica cast a worried look to Foggy. He looked even more tired and resigned, if that was possible. “What present?”

“It’s in the closet,” he said. “Go look. It’s good.”

Foggy sighed loudly and beckoned her over. “This was the other thing. He, um… Just look.”

Jessica slowly followed Foggy to the hall closet. The door was open. She stepped forward and looked in. She stepped back and looked at Foggy. His jaw was clenched so tight that a muscle twitched in his temple.

“Is that cat…?”  
“Having kittens?” Foggy said with forced calm. “On top of my high school academic letter jacket? The answer is yes.”

“But why…?”

“She needed help,” Matt said from under his ice pack. “I helped.”

Jessica was swiftly joining Foggy on the exasperation train. “You’re telling me that you stopped - with a concussion and God only knows what other injuries - to pick up a stray pregnant cat before you went to get medical attention?”

Matt’s silence was damning.

“I don’t know,” Foggy said. He threw up his hands. “He’s your problem now.”

“You’ll never get rid of me, Fogs,” Matt called.

“He’s right, but I can still threaten to divorce him,” Foggy told Jessica.

Jessica rolled her eyes and moved to perch on the back of the couch. “Matt, I have… so many questions. Where did you even get the cat?”

“A dumpster.”

She counted to ten again. “You can’t just take animals home, Matt. What if it has rabies?”

“She doesn’t have rabies.” Matt was indignant. He lifted the ice pack to pout at her again.

“We can’t keep it.”

“But you like cats.”

“I do not.”

“You’re lying.”

She was going to strangle him. “I hate you.”

“You’re still lying.” He had the audacity to smirk at her.

“You’re insufferable.” She shared a long-suffering glance with Foggy. She’d never identified more with the man. Maybe he wasn’t too terrible, for one of Hogarth’s soulless lackeys. “We’re going to talk about this when you get your brain unscrambled.”

“Okay,” Matt said. He smiled and reached up to pat her butt. She swatted his hand away. He pouted.

Foggy coughed. He was laughing at them. Jessica scowled, and he didn’t even blink. Matt’s friends were becoming immune to her too quickly, dammit. Forget what she’d said before - she was going to have to break something expensive next time she visited Hogarth.

“Someone’s got to keep an eye on him,” Foggy said. “I don’t know if you want to go back home, or crash on my bed, or what, but I can stay with him.”

Jessica shook her head. “I’ll stay with him.”

“Are you sure?” Foggy’s relief at being able to go back to bed warred with his protective Matt impulses. “I can stay.”

“It’s okay.” She hesitated, biting her lip. Finally she said, “Thank you, Foggy. For taking care of him.”

Foggy had a strange look on his face. “It’s what I do. It’s what we _all_ do. Matt’s useless without us.”

She looked down at the groggy vigilante on the couch. A fond smile snuck onto her face. “Yeah… That’s one way to put it.”

Foggy seemed to come to a decision. He offered her his hand. It was pretty professional for a man standing in the middle of his living room in basketball shorts and a t shirt with ugly tube socks on. “You’re alright, Jessica Jones. For what it’s worth, I’m glad you and Matt found each other.”

Jessica stared at his hand and looked up at him with a raised eyebrow. He was looking more nervous by the second. She grabbed his hand just before he lowered it.

“Thanks, Foggy,” she said. “You’re not half bad… for a guy called ‘Foggy.’”

He smirked and shrugged at her. “I’ll take it. Well, if Matt’s done making stupid choices for the night, I’m going back to bed. Wake me up if anything changes, okay?”

Jessica nodded and moved around the couch to sit on the floor. Matt’s hand groped out and found her own.

“Oh, Matt,” she said quietly. He seemed to be half-asleep. “What are we going to do with you?”

She sat there all night, messing around on her phone. She woke Matt periodically to check how aware he was until she eventually nodded off with her head on the couch cushion next to Matt’s.

Foggy woke her the next morning way too early.

“Hey, I’ve got to go to work,” he said apologetically. “You guys can stay here however long you like. Can you stay until at least 9, though? I have a delivery service bringing some food and stuff for my new tenants.”

Jessica rubbed the crick in her neck and gave him a thumbs up with her other hand.

“Great. Feel free to use the coffee machine, eat my cereal, whatever. Hell, I don’t even care if you’re still here when I get back. Just don’t let Matt do anything stupid.”

“Pretty sure that’s impossible,” she grumbled.

Foggy just laughed and ran his hand gently through Matt’s hair. “See you later, buddy.”

“Bye Foggy,” Matt mumbled.

Foggy left then. Jessica stood up and stretched. Her butt had gone numb from sleeping on it for a few hours. Matt was poking his swollen jaw.

“He took pictures of us,” he told her. “He put the phone on silent, but I could still tell. He’s probably sending them to Karen as we speak.”

She was not ready to deal with that. She rolled her eyes and found the bottle of water and Tylenol Foggy had left on his coffee table for Matt. 

“Take some of these. How are you feeling?”

“My head hurts,” he said. “But I feel clearer than I did last night.”

She scoffed. “Yeah, you were pretty out of it.”

He tilted his head. His face transformed into a look of horror. “Oh my - Jess, did I really pick a cat out of a dumpster? And give it to Foggy? I thought I dreamed that.”

“Oh no, it’s real.” Speaking of, she walked over to peek into the closet. The momma cat peered up at her with one smug eye. She had three squirming kittens by her belly. Foggy’s jacket definitely needed something. Dry cleaning? And exorcism? Fire? “Congratulations, Matt. You’re an uncle.”

He groaned. “How many is it?”

“Three. And the mother.”

Matt groaned again and put a couch pillow on his face.

Jessica found Foggy’s bathroom - also surprisingly tidy, with feminine deodorant and toiletries in the cabinet. Foggy must entertain women - or even just one woman - quite a bit - and relieved herself and rinsed her face. When she came back out, Matt was sitting up.

“You want some coffee?” She briskly walked past him to go mess with Foggy’s machine. Thank God it looked pretty simple and wasn’t one of those fancy espresso/cappuccino machines. She dug through the cabinets looking for coffee grounds. “Hey, I found the breakfast cereal. It’s all that sugary shit you hate.”

“Foggy loves his Captain Crunch,” he mumbled as he swallowed his pills.

“And, apparently, Lucky Charms.” She found the coffee and gave up on breakfast. “You feeling up to going home, or are we staying here?”

Matt didn’t answer.

“Matt? You don’t talk to me I start thinking you’re having a seizure.”

Matt wrapped the blanket he’d had around himself and turned to look mournfully at her. He looked extra pathetic with his swollen jaw and the bruises on his visible skin, not mentioning the splinted fingers. “I’m sorry, Jess.”

She got the coffee going and crossed her arms. “What for this time?”

“I messed up last night.”

She kept her arms crossed, but he was too pathetic to stay mad at. “Did you save someone’s life?”

He nodded slowly.

“And you were on your way to meet up with Danny?” Another nod. “Then how’d you screw up?”

He floundered. “Well, you get upset when I get hurt…”

“Matt…” She groaned and turned away to dig around for mugs. “I didn’t want… I know things were rough when we started out, and I said I didn’t want you to take risks all the time, but I’m not an idiot.” She found the glassware and got two coffee mugs down. She looked back at Matt. “I don’t expect you to never get hurt, or to not save somebody just because you don’t have backup yet. I’m not the UN - I don’t want you to wait until shit’s irrevocably fucked before you step in. It’s enough that you just keep your own safety in mind, okay?”

Matt nodded miserably.

She brought over a cup of coffee for him and gently trailed her fingers through his hair.

“So, we crashing at Foggy’s or braving the streets?”

He took the coffee from her with a frown. “Would you… mind if we stayed here?”

She rolled her eyes at him. “I wouldn’t have asked if there was a right or wrong answer. Settle in, Devil Boy. What does your Foggy have to do for fun?”

Matt smiled at her from around his coffee. “TV? Video Games? Accessible board games?”

“Then we’re set.” She sat down beside him and knocked her shoulder into his. “And after Foggy comes back we can brainstorm rehoming your little friends.”

Matt groaned again. “I can’t believe I actually did that.”

Jessica just smirked at him and stole a sip of his coffee. He was a hopeless idiot, but he was her hopeless idiot.


	6. Plus One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tooth. Rotting. Fluff. I tasted marshmallows the entire time I wrote this. It was disgusting.
> 
> Also, wish-fulfillment. It's above 100 degrees here again today. I can't wait for it to be November and there to be a chill in the air and to dig my sweaters out of storage. Ultimate fantasy.

The heating unit still smelled a little bit like scorched dust even this far into November. It made a small clicking sound in the background periodically that accented the rhythmic scrape of a whisk on the bottom of a saucepan coming from the kitchen. There was a slight chill coming from the windows behind her, but the rest of the room was filled with dry, toasty air and the smell of warm milk and melting chocolate.

Jessica hummed and shook her foot absent-mindedly to dislodge Ignatius - Iggy for short - from his attempt to crawl up her pants leg. He fell off with a disgruntled mew before he was quickly distracted by one of the jingly mice Matt had bought for him. Jessica looked up from her laptop to watch him pounce on it clumsily for a moment. She went back to the article she was reading. Researching her clients was the most interesting part of her job. Tracking them down in the autumnal chill? Not so much.

Matt’s humming distracted her. She glanced towards the kitchen. She couldn’t see him from here, but the whisking was still going on. She felt a little mystified. Had she always owned a saucepan and a whisk, or was this another of Matt’s attempts to domesticate her? She listened harder. 

“Are you humming Metallica?” she asked.

Matt’s chuckle was audible around the wall. “One of your neighbors in the next building is playing The Black Album as loud as they can to piss off their super.”

Jessica snorted. “I can think of way better stuff to play if you want to piss someone off.”

Matt just chuckled again. She heard the stove click off and some rattling in the cupboards. She quickly zoned back into clicking through an old social media profile. Matt came into the room and set a mug down in the corner of her vision. She reached for it without dragging her eyes away.

“It’s hot,” he warned her. He moved around the desk to sit in one of her client chairs. “Any luck?”

She made a noncommittal sound and dragged the mug closer. She sniffed at the contents and frowned. She finally looked up at Matt.

“What is this?”

Matt smirked and blew gently on his mug. “Homemade hot chocolate.”

She looked into hers and raised an eyebrow. “This is fancy. Would it be crass for me to dump whiskey in it?”

“I already stirred Irish Cream into yours,” he said.

She took a cautious sip. It was hot, but it was probably the best cocoa she’d ever had. “Oh my God, Matt.”

“Good?”

She took another sip. “It’s okay,” she allowed.

Matt just laughed at her. He leaned over to stroke Iggy’s ears. “High praise from you.”

They lapsed into a comfortable silence. She was clicking through another page of bad selfies when Matt spoke up again.

“I love you.”

Jessica froze. Her blood roared in her ears. She turned - in slow motion it felt - to look at Matt. He had a casual expression plastered on, but his shoulders were tight with tension. She watched him reach up to pull his red lenses off and set them on the table between them.

“You don’t have to say anything,” he said. “I already know… I know talking about things like this isn’t something you like to do. I respect that. And I’m just telling you this - not so that you feel like you have to do anything or say it back or anything of that sort. I just wanted to say it. Just for my own peace of mind.”

She was speechless. All she could do was stare at Matt with her jaw clenched. Iggy’s claws on her leg snapped her out of it.

“Ow! Dammit, cat!” She gently pushed the kitten away and took her time straightening back up. Matt hadn’t moved.

“I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable,” he said. “I probably should have eased into it.”

She laughed quietly at that. It felt a little hollow. “When do you ever not jump in feet-first?”

“Never,” he said seriously. “But please believe me, Jessica, that I really don’t expect you to do anything with what I said. I meant it. And I want to say it again and again. I won’t if you don’t want me to. I just… wanted to say it at least once.”

Jessica licked her lip. Her eyes felt prickly with the telltale sting of approaching tears. She angrily shoved that down. She wasn’t going to cry over this. “I’m so fucked, Matt,” she blurted.

He cocked his head at her as if to try to listen closer. “Come again?”

“I can’t do this,” she said. “I’m… I’m fucking obliterated inside. You don’t deserve this shit. Nobody does. Fuck. I should just…”

“Jess, please calm down,” Matt said. He was using his lawyer voice at her. The calm, collected one she kind of hated. “It’s got nothing to do with deserving. I chose you, Jess. And I choose to love you.”

“You shouldn’t. You should be with - with someone who can give you what you need,” she said. She tugged her sweater closer to herself. “Someone who can say the fucking words.”

“I don’t need to hear them,” he said. “Jess - you beautiful, amazing woman.” He laughed, then. Jessica lifted her head and looked at him properly. He was smiling. His eyes danced in the light of her desk lamp. “I don’t need to hear you say ‘I love you.’ I hear you every day. I feel it in your lips when you kiss me. I hear it in your heartbeat, the way you walk, the touch of your hand on my arm when we walk down the street. I hear it in your voice when you call when I stay out at night. I don’t need to hear you say the words, because I’m already confident that you love me, too. I don’t need to hear you say it. Please believe me, Jess. I don’t need to hear you say it.”

She bit her lip. The prickly tears were back. “I should be able to say it. It’s just three words.”

His hands appeared in her vision. Without thinking, she took them. “Maybe you can say them one day,” Matt said to her. “Maybe you will. But even if that day never comes, I will still love you every single day. I love you, Jessica Jones. All of you. Even your broken parts.”

She sniffled and let go of his hand to scrub at her nose. Matt handed her a box of tissues. He didn’t mention the tears. He never seemed bothered by that display of weakness. She blew her nose.

“You should finish your chocolate before it gets cold,” he said.

She scoffed into her tissue and glared over at him. “You’re talking about chocolate now?”

He shrugged at her and picked his own mug back up. “Unless you want to keep talking about it?”

She shook her head and hid behind her laptop again. Matt just nodded decisively and moved over to the couch. Jessica took a sip of her cocoa and tried to distract herself with her research. Her eyes kept going back to the man on the couch, though. He’d finished his cocoa and was now petting Iggy until the young kitten fell asleep in his lap. Her heart felt uncomfortably full looking at them. She shook her head and went back to her articles and web searches.

“The cocoa was very good,” she said finally.

“Thank you,” Matt replied.

“If you want to keep making it,” she said, feeling stupid. “I wouldn’t mind.”

Matt shot a quizzical look at her. “Are we talking about the cocoa or…”

“Both,” she said shortly.

Matt beamed at her. “I would kiss you, but Iggy’s asleep. I’ll keep making cocoa as long as you like.” His voice lowered, but the warmth in it would give the tired old radiator a run for its money. “I love you, Jessica Jones.”

She didn’t say anything, just smiled, but she was sure he could hear the leaps her heart was performing. It was enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you've enjoyed. Keep your eyes peeled for future installments of this series that just won't stop growing. I love my close-knit team of vigilantes too much to let them go, and I want to resolve some feelings I have about Luke Cage season 2 and Jessica Jones season 2 and basically write more disgusting domesticity.


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